Hotel in Secaucus, New Jersey
Zach Tauber
Structural Option
Senior Thesis
BUILDING STATISTICS
Aloft Secaucus Meadowlands
Secaucus, New Jersey
General Data
Project Team
The Aloft Hotel in Secaucus, New Jersey will be a seven story, load bearing wall structure consisting of 171 guest rooms. Amenities include an indoor swimming pool, breakfast service, house and guest laundry, exercise room, business library, vending area, public restrooms, and a small meeting room. Other spaces include a lobby, guest registration area, great room, hotel office, and employee lounge.
Aloft Hotels are noted for their use of modern architecture, while trying to eliminate large impact on the environment. The focus is to give a contemporary feel while maintaining low cost.
New building code IBC 2015 will allow two stories of concrete structure followed by five stories of wood structure for residential buildings. The purpose of my thesis will be to inspect whether light gage or concrete podium / wood bearing walls is a more economical system.
Owner
GC
CM
Architect
Civil Engineer
Structural Engineer
Mech/Elect/Plumbing
Sun Development & Management
GC not yet awarded
CM not yet awarded
ZHA Architects, PC
Pennoni Associates Inc.
Ehlert/Bryan, Inc.
Hurst & Associates
Occupant Name
Occupancy
Size
Height
Construction
Cost
Delivery Method
Aloft San Jose, Costa Rica- Similar to Aloft Secaucus Meadowlands, Aloft San Jose is a seven story structure (Starwoodhotels.com)
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
Hotel, Separated Mixed Use
87,603SF Gross
7 Stories, 85ft
Bid not yet awarded
Bid not yet awarded
Design-Bid-Build
Model Codes
Zoning
State Construction Regulations
Building Code
Electrical Code
Plumbing Code
Energy conservation Codes
Mechanical Code
Fuel & Gas Code
Accessibility
Accessibility
Fire Alarm Code
Sprinkler Code
Must obtain from owner
The Uniform Construction Code
State of New Jersey
IBC 2009 N.J. ed.
NEC 2011
NSPC 2009
ASHRAE 90.1/2009 Commercial
IMC 2009
IFCG 2009
NJAC
ANSI A117.7/2003
NFPA 720
NFPA 13/72
Architecture
The Aloft Hotel is a contemporary take on ‘Boutique’ hotels. The Rockwell Group created the Aloft model of modern and energetic hospitality. The ‘wxyz Lounge’, common to all Aloft Hotels, highlights the local neighborhood. The lounge plays music by local bands while images of the community are hung on the wall.
Sustainability
Through architecture and landscape architecture, Aloft accentuates its beliefs in being environmentally conscience. Outdoor spaces of greenery show the hotel’s congruency with movements towards a low carbon footprint. Natural treatments and materials are used throughout the building to reduce negative impacts on the environment. Guest options, including multiple towel uses and hybrid parking spaces encourage passers-by to be environmentally conscience.
Enclosure
There are four primary exterior wall systems. Most of the building has an EIFS façade, while the roof accents feature aluminum composite panels. Metal panels exist at few locations along with wood paneling at the front entry. Typically, the 2” EIFS coating adheres to 5/8” dens glass gold sheathing, followed by a moisture barrier on another layer of sheathing. The metal panels contain a layer of rigid insulation before their moisture barrier.
All exterior walls are supported by light-gage metal framing. This framing contains loose insulation. The wall system resists water before moisture can reach the studs, insulation, interior sheathing, and other structural/mechanical building components hidden in the wall. Louvers and other openings have special assemblies noted on the drawings.
The roof system contains a roof membrane at top, followed by 4” rigid insulation and a 1hr rated Epicore roof slab assembly.
The exterior façade contains multiple large, floor to ceiling openings at each guest room. These openings contain tall windows with louvers below for the mechanical systems. The lobby level consists of storefront windows along with wood paneling. Exterior walls in the service corner of the structure consist mostly of either metal panels or EIFS, and less windows.
Multiple types of exterior finish systems and materials give the hotel more depth. Although these systems seem quite different, their sections are similar and therefore an economical solution to the resistance of a boring façade. A facade and roof section can be seen below.
Building Systems
Structural
The building floor structure consists of composite deck at all raised levels, and a one-way slab at the first floor. The composite deck is made up of 3” normal weight concrete of 2” 20 gage galvanized Epicore MSR deck. One layer of 6X6-W2.1 X W2.1 welded wire fabric is necessary for temperature reinforcement. Typically, #5 top steel reinforcing bars at 12” on center exist over supports to resist the negative moment carried through the slab.
The composite deck is supported by light gage bearing walls that are to be designed by a specialty engineer. 5” deep slab beams pick up load over the hallways where bearing walls do not exist, and W4x13 steel beams support the deck in locations where slab beams are too deep. The typical bay, consisting of two guestrooms separated by a hallway, is either 18’-3¾” X 19’-7¾” or 15’-9⅝” X 19’-7¾”.
The first floor contains a more ‘open’ floor plan at the lobby. Therefore, transfer girders carry the load of the bearing walls into columns. All loads transfer into either grade beams or pile caps, and then into steel H-piles. Laterally, the structure is flexible. It uses the concrete shear walls, surrounding the elevators and stairs, to resist wind and seismic loads.
Electrical/Lighting
Aloft Meadowlands in Secaucus transforms its power in a different way than most large commercial/residential projects. Rather than using its own transformer, the primary service and transformer are provided by the power company. The power company delivers a 120/208V 3-phase 4-wire service. The building’s utilization voltage is 120/208V. The main switchboard is a front accessible 4000A main distribution board. In case of emergency, the building runs off of its 350kW, 120/208V 3-phase pad mounted gas fired generator.
The building primarily uses primarily LED lighting with several high performing fluorescent fixtures, dictating an energy efficient lighting system. Several metal halide fixtures are used for outdoor lighting and specialty lighting features. Ambient lighting is achieved with fixed and adjustable downlights as well as linear coves and wallwashers. Track lighting is also utilized for accents and highlighting. Decorative lighting is an important feature in many areas and is accomplished predominantly with hanging pendant fixtures. The owner is aiming for a high quality modern aesthetic design.
Mechanical
References
1. Wikipedia Article- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloft_Hotels#cite_note-West_Broad-5
2. The Rockwell Group- http://www.rockwellgroup.com/projects/aloft
3. Aloft Secaucus Architectural Bid Set (drawings)
Due to the fact that there are a variety of spaces, the hotel uses a few different mechanical systems. The main building system is a Dedicated Outdoor Air System (DOAS) with Variable Refrigerant Flow Fan Coil Units (VRF and FCU). The ventilation load is decoupled from sensible loads through the DOAS and VRF FCU’s. As in most residential projects, the minimum outside air required by code is brought into the building. The VRF FCU’s allow for individual temperature control in the guestrooms. Exhaust fans maintain the indoor air quality and proper pressurization.
The lobby HVAC system runs off of a rooftop unit. Bathroom air is exhausted per code to prevent odors. An Energy Recovery Unit (ERU) is used to recover heat from rejected bathroom exhaust.